SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Jenniffer González Colón was sworn in Thursday as Puerto Rico’s new governor throughout a usually ebullient ceremony held amid widespread anger over a blackout that hit the U.S. territory days in the past.
González, a Republican who backs President-elect Donald Trump and whose pro-statehood New Progressive Social gathering secured a historic third consecutive time period after she gained the Nov. 5 election, has pledged to stabilize the Caribbean island’s crumbling energy grid.
“There are many challenges facing our island,” she mentioned in her first public tackle as governor as she acknowledged the blackout in a speech to a crowd gathered in entrance of the seaside Capitol. “That is precisely what moves me to address that first challenge with a sense of urgency.”
She pledged to enhance Puerto Rico’s infrastructure, hospitals and colleges, including that she intends to spice up bilingual schooling.
“I’m going to fulfill my promises to you,” she mentioned. “I am not going to govern only for those who voted for me. I am going to be the governor of all Puerto Ricans.”
Puerto Rico’s newly sworn-in Gov. Jennifer Gonzalez delivers her inaugural speech throughout an out of doors ceremony on the Capitol constructing in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Jan. 2, 2025. (Photograph by RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP through Getty Photos)
González has promised to nominate an vitality “czar” to evaluate potential contractual breaches whereas one other operator is discovered to probably change Luma Vitality, a personal firm that oversees the transmission and distribution of energy in Puerto Rico.
Nevertheless, no contract could be canceled with out prior approval from Puerto Rico’s Vitality Bureau and a federal management board that oversees the island’s funds.
Outages have been nonetheless being reported on Thursday as crews tried to stabilize the grid following the blackout that hit early Tuesday, leaving 1.3 million prospects in the dead of night as Puerto Ricans ready for New Yr’s Eve.
Whereas electrical energy had been restored to 99% of the utility’s 1.47 million whole prospects, greater than 600,000 have been briefly left with out energy on New Yr’s Day when a part of the system collapsed once more, based on Luma.
González, 48, had beat former Gov. Pedro Pierluisi throughout their celebration’s major in June.
Whereas González’s speedy problem is Puerto Rico’s fragile energy grid, she additionally inherits a feeble economic system that has slowly been strengthening because the U.S. territory’s authorities declared in 2015 that it was unable to pay its greater than $70 billion public debt load.
In 2017, it filed for the largest U.S. municipal chapter in historical past.
González additionally must work alongside a federal management board that the U.S. Congress created in 2016 to supervise Puerto Rico’s funds and supervise the continued reconstruction after Hurricane María slammed into the island in September 2017 as a strong Class 4 storm, razing {the electrical} grid.
She additionally faces strain to create inexpensive housing, decrease energy payments and the overall price of residing, scale back violent crime, enhance Puerto Rico’s economic system, with the island locked out of capital markets since 2015, and enhance a limping well being care system as hundreds of docs flock to the U.S. mainland.
